Once you have your social media channels up and running, the next thing you would want is to boost traffic and build a large pool of loyal social followers. Easier said than done, the task will require you to accurately assess what your audience is interested in and what are the things that would truly delight them. Here are some tips to get you started in the right direction.
Create engaging content
For your audience, social media is all about expressing their views and sharing ideas that delight and inspire. So, the first thing you need to do is spend some time and effort in coming up with great content that can delight your audience. This is the first step you need to take towards the goal of building a huge fan following on your social media channels.
You can do this in-house or outsource it to a professional social media management company. What you choose will depend on your budget and available time. Content would include everything from slogans to banners, visual imagery, infographics, industry insights, technical knowhow, information about products and services, podcasts and videos.
Create content specific to the platform
So where do you think most of your audience is? Are they on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other platform? You need to know these things in order to improve your customer targeting and creating content that suits a specific social media platform.
For example, if you notice that a significant percentage of your audience is on Facebook, you will have to focus more on creating visually appealing content such as banners, posters, infographics, images and videos. On Twitter, focus more on succinct textual content. On LinkedIn, you will do better with informative and insightful content that would appeal to professionals.
Invest in a scheduling tool
You need to maintain a constant stream of social media updates to keep your audience engaged. You need to avoid the extremes such as flooding your channels with updates and posting too few updates in an erratic manner. Assuming that you would be running short of time and would want to focus more on your core business initiatives, we suggest that you invest in a social media scheduling tool. This will allow you to load up all your updates at once and automatically release them to various channels, as per the schedule you may have created.
Actively engage your audience
This would require you to actively respond to comments and queries posted by users on your social media channels. While you would do okay with a response time of 24 hours, what would really delight your audience is when you post instant replies to their comments or queries. Engaging your audience in one-on-one conversations will add a personal touch and establish the fact that your brand cares for its customers.
Offer tangible rewards
Apart from great content, you can post special offers and promotions on your social media channels. You can also host contests, something that will challenge your audience to compete and take away the winning prize. Customer engagement, with a promise for tangible rewards, can work great for your specific social media channel and help you build a loyal fan base.